Oldest
by Morning Lilies
Summary: Charlie's leaving for Romania and Percy wishes he'd hurry up. It's Percy's turn to be the oldest of his siblings and he thinks he's got it all figured out. So Charlie gives him a test-run. Will he still think it's so easy to be the oldest?


**A/N: My second entry for My Dear Professor McGonagall's sibling-rivalry competition! Finally done! I had Percy and Charlie this time. I haven't really written much of either of them, so it was pretty interesting for me to work on this story. I loved it because the family dynamic is fascinating to me. I hope I pulled it off! :) **

"Stop! Fred! George! Put that down right now! – Don't throw that, Ron! You'll break it! Ginny! – what do you think you're doing?"

Percy Weasley stood helplessly at the center of complete chaos as his younger siblings proceeded to tear the sitting room apart, shouting and shrieking, throwing cushions and dodging the rabid fanged Frisbee the twins had set loose. His glasses had been knocked askew, his collar was torn, and he was red in the face from shouting fruitlessly at the mob that was _his _responsibility.

"Settle down, all of you! I swear you'll be cleaning this up! Just wait until Mum gets back!"

"Get out of the way, Perce! You're blocking ickle Ronniekinz!" one of the twins called, aiming a pillow at their youngest brother with a wicked smirk.

"Put that down! You're to listen to me, George Weasley! I'm a prefect now, and –"

"I'm Fred!" his brother exclaimed indignantly, launching the pillow.

"Ow! Fred, you nearly took my eye out!" Ron howled, ducking behind the sofa.

"I'm _George_!" the twin cried in exaggerated frustration as Ginny leaped from an armchair onto his back, and they crashed sideways into the desk, sending parchment, ink, and quills cascading to the floor.

Above the clamor of Percy's renewed attempts to get the situation under control came the bang of the back door, and a moment later, Charlie appeared, heading for the stairs with an armload of empty cardboard boxes. He glanced bemusedly at the cyclone that was his siblings tearing around the living room.

"Not that I mind enthusiastic redecorating, but our house seems in enough danger of toppling over as it is. Take it down a notch, huh, guys?" he called, disappearing up the stairs.

Instantly the room fell quiet. Ron stopped throwing books over the couch to ward off attackers, Ginny stopped trying to strangle whichever twin she had hold of, and the other twin deftly caught the fanged Frisbee just as it swooped dangerously close to the lamp. Percy watched in astonishment as the four little beasts turned into civilized children as if Charlie had hit a switch and began picking up the destroyed room.

"_Now _you decide to listen?" he said incredulously.

One of the twins arched an eyebrow.

"Were you saying something before, Perce?"

"Our apologies," chimed in the other. "We couldn't hear over this annoying, nasally _drone_."

"We tried to shut it up, but nothing worked," the first twin shrugged.

Ron and Ginny tittered as the twins smirked and Percy turned to stormed away up the stairs.

On the landing, he spotted Charlie through his half-open door, whistling as he threw things into the boxes.

"What did you have to go and do that for?" Percy demanded, pushing his way into his brother's bedroom, ears glowing red from anger and embarrassment.

Charlie glanced at him curiously. "Do what? Stop the munchkins from tearing the house apart? Would you rather I went back down and told them to carry on?"

"You undermined my authority and humiliated me in front of my charges!" Percy fumed, puffing up.

Charlie snorted. "What authority?"

"I am a prefect now," Percy told him pompously, fingering the badge he'd pinned to his shirt.

"Doesn't look like this is Hogwarts to me," Charlie muttered, rolling his eyes.

"_And,_" Percy plowed on importantly, "Mum left _me _in charge while she's in London. You aren't even supposed to be here. You haven't got any business giving orders and humiliating me –"

"First of all," Charlie interrupted, sweeping a stack of books off the shelf and dropping them unceremoniously into a box in a jumbled pile, "you humiliate yourself just fine without _my _help. Second, I'm older than you, which give me automatic trump when it comes to authority anyway, and third, you ought to be thanking me. Imagine if Mum came home to find the living room in that state? You'd never be left in charge again."

"I was handling it," Percy blustered, reddening further. "That lot'll never listen to me now that you came butting in. You're going off to chase dragons in Romania. You've got to pass the torch, back me up. _I'm _the oldest now."

"Well I'm not gone yet," Charlie reminded his little brother. "And I can't _give _you the munchkins' respect. It's your own fault they don't listen to you. You're a right prat, Perce."

Percy scowled. "They _would _listen to me if you and Bill would back me up once in a while. But now you're off trotting the globe like Bill with your 'new job' and I'm stuck to deal with that lot."

Most people would have only heard the sullen frustration in Percy's voice, but Charlie had spent nearly fifteen years living with his little brother. Sometimes, if you really looked hard for it, there was more to Percy than the stiff pompousness he radiated.

"Are you going to miss me, Percy?" Charlie asked, his lips quirking as he tried not to smirk.

Percy looked at him sharply. "What sort of question is that? It's got nothing to do with the fact that you've basically ruined my reputation as oldest before I even got it."

Charlie rolled his eyes and flopped down onto his old mattress with a groan of rusty springs. "Clearly you and I need to have a chat about what it means to be the oldest around here."

"I don't need lessons," Percy snapped. "I know what I'm doing."

Charlie raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Oh, really? You think you can handle all of it without any help?"

"Well it's not like you and Bill ever did that much," Percy said dismissively and perhaps with a hint of bitterness. "You two ran out the door as fast as you could."

Charlie sat up, studying his brother with a frown.

"Alright, fine," he said at last. "I don't leave for Romania for another week, but since you already know it all, I'll let you take over right now. I'll take the week off. No more butting in from me."

Percy blinked at him. "Alright. Good. You're practically already gone anyway."

"Thanks for those tender words of brotherly affection," said Charlie, feigning injury.

Percy rolled his eyes as he left.

XxX

Apparently the 'munchkins' had exercised out all their crazy energy in tearing apart and then cleaning up the living room, because Percy didn't have a problem with them the rest of the day.

Ginny spent the afternoon subjected her stuffed animals to extreme-tobogganing, strapping them to boards and sending them racing down the all five staircases that zigzagged through the house, Ron flopped down on the heath rug with a stack of Martin Miggs comic books, and Fred and George retreated to their bedroom, from whence came the occasional loud _bang,_ letting the rest of the house know everything was normal. But Charlie knew it was only a matter of time.

And he was right.

That night, as he finished packing away the last of the things he couldn't take to Romania, but didn't want to throw out, he heard the familiar sound of Ginny's bedroom door squeaking open, and footsteps creeping slowly and cautiously across the hall. Sighing, but grinning to himself, Charlie waited until her light footsteps were halfway down the stairs before he cracked his own door open to watch her disappear into the kitchen and catch the soft click of the back door.

Well, if Percy wanted to be the oldest…

So instead of following her himself, he headed up the stairs to his brother's room instead.

"Oi, oldest child of the household," he said, poking his head around the door. "Duty calls."

Xx

"What on earth does she think she's doing?" Percy demanded incredulously as the pair of them watched Ginny emerge from the broom shed clutching one of the twins' cleansweeps.

"What's it look like?" Charlie said. "Going for a late-night, unauthorized fly by herself."

"But she can't do that!" Percy exclaimed. "Mum'd go mad! She doesn't even like flying!"

Charlie laughed. "That's what she lets on 'cause Mum wants a little girl she can put in dresses, but nothing stops Ginny form doing as she likes."

"Well she can't go on breaking into the shed like this," said Percy, turning from the window and making to march up the stairs.

Charlie shot a hand out and grabbed the back of his shirt. "Where do you think you're going?"

"To tell Mum and Dad!" Percy spluttered indignantly. "I can't imagine why you haven't already."

"You're not telling them anything," Charlie said firmly. "You'll only get her into trouble and then she'll be mad at you and how well do you think she'll listen to you then? Besides, you and I both know it won't stop her from doing what she wants anyway. Ginny's a force to be reckoned with."

"But she could fall off or crash or something and get hurt all by herself!"

"Which is why you're going to go sit on that hill near the paddock and keep an eye on her," Charlie told him, pushing him towards the door. "Mind you don't let her see you, though, or her fun'll be ruined and she'll be cross with you. Just have your wand ready in case she slips or something."

"But I can't do magic out of school!" Percy protested.

"If your little sister is plummeting from twenty feet, I think they'll let it slide," Charlie sighed, rolling his eyes. "Besides, they can't tell it was you, can they?"

"But –" Percy turned to protest again, but Charlie had pushed him out the door and snapped it shut before he could get the words out.

It was late when he heard Ginny sneak back into her bedroom. Charlie held his breath, hoping the lack of shouting and door-slamming meant that Percy had actually managed not to get caught following her. A few minutes later he heard Percy's footsteps clunking up the steps and the door flew open.

"This is madness!' Percy hissed. "Have you seen what she does? Swooping and rolling and diving all over the place! You can hardly even _see _her at night, much less stop her from crashing. She's going to break her neck. I'm telling Mum and Dad."

"Say one word and Bill and I will happily pound you into the dirt," Charlie said casually, flipping a page in the magazine he was reading.

"But she'll get herself killed!" Percy protested.

"No she won't. Not as long as you keep an eye on her. Besides, she's a good flyer and she loves it. You take that away from her and she won't be the only one to never speak to you again."

"And what about when we go back to school? Who'll keep an eye on her then?"

Charlie rolled his eyes. "The only broom that'll be left is Ron's old shooting star and that's hardly worth taking out at all. You can't even skin your knee on that thing. Relax, Percy. If Ginny can sneak out without Mum and Dad finding out, she deserves the thrill. Your job now is to keep an eye out."

Percy didn't look happy about keeping this to himself. It went against all of his instincts, after all. But he nodded reluctantly when Charlie eyed him menacingly, silently asserting that Percy was required to take on this responsibility. He heaved a tired sigh and turned to leave, but paused with his hand on the door.

"How often does she do this?" he asked suspiciously.

Charlie smirked at him. "About every other night, these days. Might want to start bringing a blanket along."

Xx

As the week leading up to his departure proceeded, Charlie found he quite enjoyed not having the responsibility of oldest anymore. He hadn't had this sort of freedom since Bill had gone to Egypt.

When Ron began his streams of questions about Hogwarts, Charlie sent him up to Percy's room instead of having to set aside whatever he'd been doing and answer them all. When Ginny started moaning about being bored, Percy was the one she had to beg to take her down to go swimming in the river. Percy was the one tied to the house when their parents had to run errands. And when Fred and George got the brilliant idea of kidnapping one of Ginny's dolls and tying it to the top of the flagpole, Percy was the one who had to climb up on top of the shed to get it down.

Percy, for his part, rather thought Charlie was putting the younger kids up to half of their shenanigans. (And he was probably right.) It had become a common occurrence for Charlie, smirking smugly, to come barging into Percy's bedroom, calling 'the eldest and most in charge' to fulfill his brotherly duties.

And so, halfway through the week, when he was interrupted for the fifth time in his attempt to finish his charms homework, Percy was, perhaps, a little less patient than he could have been.

"Why aren't you herding the munchkins down to the village?" Charlie asked, flopping down on Percy's bed.

"Because I've got homework to do," Percy told him through gritted teeth. "And since Ron couldn't find his chess set and Fred and George decided to explode Ginny's paints, and apparently those are my problems, I haven't got any of it done today."

"But you're the oldest," Charlie reminded him annoyingly. "It's your job to help Mum clean up the munchkins' messes and rescue stray chess sets from behind the bookshelf."

"They're hardly munchkins anymore, Charlie," Percy pointed out irritably. "Ginny's nearly ten. They don't need someone holding their hands all day."

"Hey Perce, remember when you lost that wristwatch granddad gave to you? Who was it that spent an entire day sweeping under furniture and scouring the garden until it turned up in your sock drawer? And how old were you then? Oh, that was just last month, wasn't it?"

Percy blushed. Charlie flicked a paperclip at him, grinning. "Better get down to the village with the not-so-little-anymore munchkins. Mum's about up the wall, trying to clean the house for Auntie Muriel's visit. Besides, there's a girl down there our dear Georgie-porgie seems to fancy and as oldest brother, you've got to get on with embarrassing him until he looks like a tomato or he'll never know if she's worth the trouble or not. But of course, you already know all that."

He heaved himself up and strolled out, winking at his disgruntled brother.

"FRED! GEORGE! IF THOSE DUNG BOMBS GET SET OFF, YOU WON'T BE LEAVING YOUR ROOM UNTIL SCHOOL STARTS!"

"Better hurry up!" Charlie called to Percy from half-way down the stairs.

Percy threw down his quill with a noise of frustration.

Xx

"What was that?"

Charlie didn't even bother to knock that night when he barged into Percy's room yet again. But this time his smirk was gone and in its place was a stormy look. Their mother's shouts followed him into the room, shaking up through the house from two floors away.

Percy slammed his quill down and whirled round.

"What was _I _supposed to do?" he demanded furiously. "Their uncivilized brutes and they won't listen to me anyway."

"It doesn't matter if they won't listen to you!" Charlie said through gritted teeth. "If you see Fred and George doing something that's going to set Mum off like that, no matter how funny it is, you _don't let it happen_! That's part of being the responsible one. You don't just _watch _and tattle. You run interference."

"Was I supposed to dive under Aunt Muriel's chair and throw myself on those dung bombs myself?" Percy snapped. "Besides, it's not like anyone's going to miss her visits, and Fred and George deserve to get it from Mum."

Charlie closed his eyes as if praying for patience and ran an hand through his scrubby red hair. He opened his mouth, but Percy cut him off before he could utter a sound.

"You're _leaving, _Charlie. I'm the oldest at home now and I'll do things how I see fit. If the twins want to pull something like they did tonight, they can suffer the consequences. All of them are old enough to be responsible for themselves by now. What they do isn't my problem."

Percy glared at his older brother, eyes flashing. Charlie stared back, unable to find suitable words for a response. Then he found some.

"Of course it's your problem, you moron!"

"Don't call me a moron!" Percy shouted, bypassing scarlet and turning maroon.

"I'll call you whatever I want! In three days, I'm gone and they're all stuck with you!"

"Get out of my room, Charlie! I don't need to be lectured and I _don't _need to be told what to do by _you _anymore! I know what I'm doing, now get out!"

They both glared at each other this time, and Charlie turned and wrenched open the door. But before he could storm a way, Ron came hurtling down the stairs into his path, bouncing off the wall and skidding to a clumsy stop on the landing. His eyes were a little wild and he was clutching his pillow to his chest.

"Can I sleep in your room?" he panted, looking pleadingly at Charlie.

"Better talk to him," Charlie grunted, jerking a thumb over his shoulder towards Percy's room and scowling. "He's the oldest and wisest now."

Ron didn't look eager about this suggestion, but he cast a nervous look up the stairs in the direction of his own bedroom and gulped.

"Um… Percy?"

"Why can't you sleep in your own room, Ron?" Percy snapped.

Ron blushed and looked down at his bare feet in embarrassment. "There's a spider on my window."

Percy flung his hands up in an explosion of exasperation. "For Merlin's sake, Ron! You're eleven years old! If there's a spider in your room, quit being such a baby and put it out the window! What do you think your dorm mates at school will think of you if you run away screaming from a stupid spider? Grow up already and DEAL WITH IT YOURSELF!"

Ron actually fell back a step, his blue eyes huge with hurt and bewilderment. He gave a sort of squeak and turned to run up the stairs, but Charlie stopped him with a hand. Giving Percy, who was breathing hard and looked as if his outburst shocked even him, a disgusted look, he said, "You can sleep in my room if you want, Ron. I'll go spider-hunting for you in minute."

Nodding his thanks, Ron cast a reproachful look at Percy and scuttled out of the room. Charlie shut the door behind him. Then he turned on his younger brother, who hadn't moved an inch.

"What the hell, Perce? You call _that _knowing what you're doing?"

"I didn't –"

But Charlie wasn't interested in hearing it. "Being the oldest isn't some idiotic contest for power, you git! You don't get to order Ron and Ginny and the twins around because you're the oldest or because you're a _prefect _or because Mum left you in charge! Mum and Dad have spent half their lives raising the seven of us. When you're old enough to appreciate that, your job is to make things a little bit easier.

"That means you keep an eye on the little kids when Mum and Dad can't, you stop the twins from causing them extra problems, you help out even when you're not asked, and you fill in when Mum and Dad are too busy dealing with someone else to kill a spider or find a watch. And it doesn't matter if you've got homework or a girlfriend or whether you want to do it or not, you do it anyway because that's what being part of a family _is_."

Percy found he couldn't meet his brother's intense gaze. He wanted to say something, to defend himself, but speach had left him.

Charlie continued in a low, fierce voice, "That's what we did for you."

XxX

Charlie couldn't sleep. He lay in bed listening to Ron's muffled snoring much later, thinking about Saturday, when he was leaving for Romania. But for the first time he wasn't thinking about all the dragons and infinite freedom he would find there, but of the Burrow when he really was gone for good.

He was worried about what would happen at Hogwarts when his brothers went back without him. Percy was stubborn and hated being wrong more than anything. Charlie yelling at him was not likely going to make him wake up and start thinking about the rest of the family before his ambition. What if Fred and George crossed a line this year? What if Ron got picked on? And what about when Ginny started school? He almost didn't even want to think about what she would make of Hogwarts.

As if on cue, Charlie heard the tell-tale squeak of a bedroom door. Sighing, he heaved himself out of bed, stepped carefully over Ron, and slipped out onto the landing for a night of life-guarding.

But he wasn't the only person who had heard. A shadow slipped passed Charlie on the landing, following Ginny's soft footsteps. In the dim light form the next landing, Percy turned to glance at his brother.

"Don't worry, I've got it," he mouthed before lighting his wand and disappearing down the stairs after Ginny.

And somehow, Charlie wasn't as worried as he had been.

**A/N: Alright, now it's time for the verdict. *bites nails* what did you think? I'll be honest and tell you that I grappled with this more than I had hoped to. But I like the idea, so I hope it all came through. Also, it implies in DH (and I looked it up) that the dung bomb incident with Aunt Muriel happened around Christmas, but it doesn't say so for sure, so I'm taking artistic liberties and putting it in the summer. If there are any picky people like me out there who noticed that detail and were thinking 'um, wrong' for half the story. :D **

**Anyway, I've got one more entry for this competition to go, folks! It's the Black Brothers who get a one-shot next! :D Thanks for reading! **


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